SACRAMENTO, CA (KMJ) – ‘Gavin’s Law passed out of the Assembly Public Safety Committee on Tuesday.
The committee heard powerful testimony from Rita Gladding, Gavin’s mother, and Mike Osegueda, whose sister Courtney Osegueda was killed in a hit-and-run crash in February 2021 in Oakland. With the votes cast, the bill was left one vote short of passing.
Assembly-member Jim Patterson is behind AB-1067. Shortly after, Democrat Assemblymember Mia Bonta (D-Oakland) changed her vote from “not voting” to “yes” after a conversation with Assemblyman Patterson in which he further explained how the loophole benefits drivers who leave the scene of a hit-and-run.
If signed into law, AB 1067 will increase penalties for drivers in fatal hit-and-run crashes from the current maximum of four years, to six years. As the law is written, a DUI driver who leaves the scene and sobers up before being caught, avoids a potential 15-year sentence for felony DUI charges.
Gavin’s Law is named after beloved Central Valley vice principal Gavin Gladding. Gladding, a Clovis Unified Vice Principal, was struck and killed by a hit and run driver, in September of 2018. The driver was sentenced to three years, but only served 13 months behind bars.
Assembly-member Patterson, family, friends and supporters of AB-1067, have been fighting for years for harsher penalties for hit and run drivers. Gavin Gladding’s wife, Susan, has testified numerous time in front of committees in Sacramento.
In previous attempts, Gavin’s Law passed almost unanimously twice through the Assembly but failed to pass through the Senate Public Safety Committee.
Supporters of Gavin’s Law say the hit and run driver who struck and killed Gladding – Rogelio Alvarez Maravilla – was suggested to be drunk at the time, and received too lenient a sentence, three years behind bars.
Court documents say 18 year-old Maravilla and his girlfriend were returning from a party when he struck Gladding with his truck, then left the scene.
“The way that the California Law is written today incentivizes the driver to flee the scene, rather than to stop and to assist the individual that they have critically injured with their vehicle,” said Susan Gladding, during her testimony in 2020.
AB-1067 will now be heard in Assembly Appropriations Committee for further hearing in the coming weeks.
Listen to the reports by KMJ’s Liz Kern.
